DISEASES AND INSECTS. 49 



spoiling the fruit and making it fall. It is of an 

 ochreous colour, and the body is hairy. A good remedy 

 is Scotch snuff, spread by means of the machine used 

 for dusting sulphur over vines. 



The mite family, Acari, are destructive in proportion 

 to numerical force, and difficult to deal with from their 

 extreme minuteness. A. tellarius, the red spider, is 

 the worst of the lot, almost covering the under surfaces 

 of the leaves, impeding respiration by spreading a 

 minute web wherever they go, and sucking the juices 

 until the foliage loses colour, becomes dry, and is useless 

 for its office of carrying on necessary circulation. The 

 insect is so small that it can scarcely be detected 

 by the unassisted eye, and it is one of the gardener's 

 greatest pests. In form it rather resembles a spider ; 

 sometimes it is yellowish, sometimes brown, and some- 

 times of a dull red, and it has a dark spot on each side 

 of the back. It is especially destructive in greenhouses 

 and hothouses, which have been kept too hot and dry, 

 but it also attacks (out of doors) beans, lime trees, 

 apple, pear, and plum trees, and destroys cucumbers. 

 Make a paint by beating up a quarter of a pound of 

 soft soap in a gallon of warm water, mix in clay enough 

 to make it like paint, and a little soot to deaden the 

 colour. Stir in four good handfuls of sulphur, and 

 keep it stirred up while you paint with it the stems of 

 fruit trees that are infested, and the walls behind 

 such as are planted against walls. The beginning of 

 April is the time to use it. The lime-wash used in 

 greenhouses should have a good proportion of sulphur 

 mixed with it. Syringing with water is good, as is also 

 fumigating with sulphur or turpentine ; but care must 

 be taken that the sulphur does not take fire, which 

 would destroy the plants : it begins to vapourize at 170, 

 to which it may be raised, on plates over boiling water, 

 or on hot-water pipes. Syringe afterwards. 



A. geniculatus is a glossy, brownish-red mite, whicli 

 collects on the bark of plum and other trees. It may 

 be effectually dislodged by a touch of turpentine, or by 

 the use of gas ammoniacal liquor. A. liolosericew, 



E 



